Blood and Sharps
by tepid sponge bath
Summary: Akabane Kuroudo is hired to transport a scientist to a biotechnology convention. All I can say is that this involves fraud in the scientific community, deadly viruses and an even deadlier Transporter.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I in no way own any part of Get Backers, and do not stand to gain profit from this. And, really, I wouldn't dare lay claim to Doctor Jackal.

**Chapter One**

_Just one story in this two story town – _Bon Jovi, _Two Story Town_

He hadn't been easy to find. True, she could have hired somebody else to do the looking, but she was short on funds, and uncomfortable with the idea of explaining things to more people than she needed to. But she had found him at last, and there he was, with his long black coat, wide black hat, and deadly grace incongruous with the park he was walking in, and even more at odds with the ice cream cone that he was holding in one white-gloved hand.

She walked up to him, nervously, forcing her hands to stay at her sides to prevent them from wringing together in embarrassing nervous habit. She stopped when she was almost toe to toe with the infamous Doctor Jackal, largely because she hadn't been paying attention to how close she was getting.

He looked down at her, face framed by lawlessly twisting strands of black, black hair, an eyebrow quirked upwards in mild inquiry. She blinked. He had purple eyes. She hadn't expected that.

"Er," she said, to his boots.

"Well?" he asked, gently, prompting her.

"I. Um."

"Please speak up. I haven't got all day."

"Er. Well. Um. I, well, er. Um." She sounded like an idiot, and was painfully aware of it. Briefly, she wondered if the Transporter would get annoyed enough at her stuttering to kill her. Well, if he did, he'd save some people a lot of trouble.

"Keh." It was the merest breath of annoyance. He stepped around her and began to walk away, presumably eating his ice cream – it was hard to tell from behind the hat.

"Wait, please, I –" She sounded like she was begging, and for once, she didn't care. It _was _begging, and to Hell with it, she was desperate.

The Transporter stopped at least, even if he didn't turn to look at her, and seemed to wait for her to continue.

"I've got a job for you." It sounded a little lame now that she had said it out loud, but there it was.

He did turn then, and the movement with which he popped the last of the ice cream cone into his mouth was so fast that she might have just imagined it.

"My schedule is full for the next two months." He said it without apology, without arrogance – just simple fact. "You'll have to find somebody else."

She smiled at him, a wry, crooked twist of the mouth that only qualified as a smile because of a slight quirking upwards at the corners. "Do you have the time to hear me out at least? Please?"

Akabane Kuroudo looked her up and down. She was just over average height, but her build made her look taller. Her brown hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, the oval lenses of her glasses were smudged (it was almost tempting to reach out and wipe them off, how she could still see in them was anybody's guess), and her jeans and shirt looked like they had been slept in. She had a white lab coat slung over one arm, and was hugging it close to her chest, like a child with a security blanket.

The lab coat amused him.

"I won't make any promises," he said, "but I can listen to what you have to say."

Relief broke across her face like a sunrise in miniature. "Thanks so much," she blurted out, her grip on the coat tightening. If it had been a living thing, she would have strangled it by now.

"I'm not promising you anything," he reminded her, his polite little smile taking the edge off his words.

"I know. Just – thanks." She gave a nervous laugh, loosed her grip on the lab coat long enough to tuck a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry. I'm not properly human until I've had my coffee. Do you mind?"

Akabane knew people who were _never_ properly human, even with caffeine in their system (and he sometimes got along better with them than with the ones who were reputedly 'normal'). Nevertheless, he inclined his head – a movement exaggerated by the broadness of his hat – and said, congenially, "I know a place."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

_I know now what troubles can be, and why they follow me so easily. _– Vertical Horizon, _Shackled_

The aroma of coffee filled the small café as the proprietor set a steaming cup in front of the woman with the lab coat (it was folded messily on her lap). She smiled her thanks at the man, resisting the urge to remark upon the orange-red hair held back by a bandana. He grinned back at her before returning to his seat behind the counter to finish his cigarette and his newspaper.

She took a sip of her coffee, and sat back, looking considerably less frazzled but a little bit more tense and nervous. The gravity of the situation had hit her, quite suddenly, now that she was awake enough to think things through, and no longer occupied with looking for the Transporter, who was sitting opposite her, across the scrupulously clean table, quiet and still in the way that the world is before the thunder.

"Akabane-san." She paused, briefly, as if to ascertain that she was using the correct form of address. "It's like this. I work – used to work, I guess – for this company. Panacea Incorporated, under Virbius International. They're launching a new product two days from now, in time for the biotech con that's going to be held at the Science and Technology Complex they built just off the coast, if you've heard of that…" She shrugged, bobbed her head almost apologetically. "Anyway, point is, I need to get there."

The look that she was given from beneath the black hat was decidedly displeased. Akabane had been hoping for something at least mildly interesting, not someone who was simply in need of a chaperone.

"I'm afraid I can't help you," he said crisply. "But I could put you in touch with some of my colleagues who might be interested." Himiko came to mind – she had been griping lately about the lack of employment, in a very unladylike manner.

"You don't understand!" She leaned forward urgently, shoving the coffee cup to one side so she wouldn't knock it over. "There are people after me. They want me dead. I almost didn't make it out of the lab." She bit her lip, and sat back, heavily leaning against the back of her seat. "Well, I suppose that isn't strictly true. I managed to sneak out before they got there. But it was ridiculous, hanging onto a drain pipe for dear life, and in lab clothes…" A rueful smirk flitted across her face. "It's a good thing I wasn't working in Infectious yesterday."

"Hire a Protector, then. I suggest the Miroku."

"_I don't have time._ Please, I've heard you're the best. I'm just asking for two days, even less if we go fast. I - I can pay you. Maybe not all at once, but I definitely can."

The look on Doctor Jackal's face went from displeasure to one that, on any other person, might have been said to be downright hostile. "I've already told you that I have commitments to honor, and it is rude of you to insist that I do otherwise. And if you have heard anything at all about me, you will know on what basis I choose my work."

A satisfyingly uncomfortable silence hung in the air. There were advantages, Akabane thought, to having a reputation for bloodthirstiness, not the least of which was discouraging the more undesirable type of clientele.

"I've heard." Her head drooped a little, enough of her hair falling out of place to partly obscure her rueful smile. "There _are_ people trying to kill me."

The Transporter did not even dignify that with an answer. In all probability, the 'people' in question would turn out to be grossly unskilled hirelings who would hardly be worth the time.

"Well, it was worth a try." The woman shrugged, knocked back the rest of her coffee, and gathered her lab gown in her arms. "Thank you for your time, Akabane-san. And for bringing me here. The coffee was very good." She started to head towards the door of the Honky Tonk, and stopped halfway, as if something had suddenly occurred to her, then pivoted around, causing the lab gown to make a white arc in the air.

"If," she said, talking, for the second time that day to the back of Akabane Kuroudo's hat, "you take job, and _if_ you are not satisfied with the…amusement it provides you, and _if_ I get to the convention on time, in one piece, and do what I have to do there – "

"Yes?" Akabane looked over his shoulder, surprised at the persistence (or plain bullheadedness, perhaps), this person was exhibiting.

"I'll fight you."

There was a discrete hacking noise from behind the counter, where Paul had inhaled too deeply on his cigarette. A soft chuckle started at the back of Akabane's throat. He had been expecting all manner of things, but most certainly not that.

"Find somebody else to do your Transporting," he said, "because _if_ I were to take you up on that, I would not go easy on you, and I doubt," he added, at the risk of being impolite, "that you would present much of a challenge Miss…?"

"_Doctor _Isagani." She met his gaze levelly, purple eyes or no. "And I wouldn't say it if I didn't think I could."

"Keh. You wouldn't be the first to think so highly of yourself."

"We'll see. Will you take the job?"

"I must confess that this has become interesting." And it was, if only for how far her reckless desperation to hire a Transporter went. He stood, walked to where Isagani stood, inclined his head in a small bow. "You had better not go back on your word, Doctor. Akabane Kuroudo, at your service."

"Librada Isagani, PhD." She nodded back at him. "And I won't."


End file.
